


Captain Cannon

by aintweproudriff



Series: Superhero AU [2]
Category: Newsies (1992), Newsies - All Media Types, Newsies!: the Musical - Fierstein/Menken
Genre: (so is tagging), M/M, Multi, a little violence, crutchie's an awesome superhero, katherine is a boss as always, protective bf davey jacobs, relationships are hard
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-24
Updated: 2017-10-27
Packaged: 2019-01-22 04:21:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,868
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12473376
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aintweproudriff/pseuds/aintweproudriff
Summary: Part 2 of the Superhero AU.Crutchie and his boyfriends don't always have a perfect relationship, and sometimes being superhuman makes that worse.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I realized I hadn't updated this in a while, so here's the next part of it!

In his dreams, he could still hear the squealing of tires on an icy road. Dream-him, the one that was still seven years old, would crawl out of the rubble of the family car, pulling himself up by his arms. Desperately he reached out, trying to get hold of something that might save his life, that might bring him back to his parents. He’d see their bodies, lying bloody on the road, but he never was able to see their faces. Maybe that was for the best. 

Charlie would awake, every time, biting his lips so hard they bled, trying to keep in his screams. That didn’t hurt so much anymore, now that someone - or usually two someones - woke up with him and held him until he calmed down. When he had been only a few months out of the hospital, and when he had been alone for years afterwards, he woke up screaming and shaking, with no outlet and no help. 

“You’re okay, Crutchie,” Davey whispered. “It’s over. You’re here now.”

He knew that, of course. But he couldn’t forget it. 

-

The best part about his life now wasn’t actually his job, although being a superhero had its perks. Seeing himself on a lunchbox made him smile every time. But no, the best part about his job was his co-workers. There was something about working in an underground laboratory, full of people who could do superhuman tricks and used their abilities to help humanity, that felt like home. Any of these people could have been doing anything, including being the very villains Charlie wanted to fight.  
The commute from Charlie’s home to work wasn’t half bad either, now that he had people to share it with. It was a lot more fun to walk with Jack and Davey, and to wake up together and get ready together. He recommended working with your boyfriends, especially when the three of you were fighting crime together.  
Normally, the three of them would wake up to an alarm Davey had set the night before; he decided how much they should sleep in, and didn’t like to let them oversleep. Thank god for him, honestly. How many times would Crutchie and Jack have been late if he hadn’t done that? They’d get ready for work together, eat breakfast together, and get on the subway together. Somehow, they never grew tired of each other’s company, even when they were together all the time. Even at work, when Jack and Crutchie would go out on a mission together, Davey would always be the first one to greet them, no matter what he was working on. He liked to ask them how the mission had gone, and how they felt; if they’d gotten hurt, how he could help, and on and on. It was endearing, and they’d ask him all sorts of questions back about whatever he had worked on that day as the three of them headed home. 

-

Not everything can go perfectly all the time. He knew it, but that didn’t mean he had to like it. On one Monday morning, however, Charlie was rudely reminded. 

The sound of a blaring alarm on Davey’s phone woke him up, and he fuzzily felt his boyfriend roll out of bed to turn it off. And then, just as Crutchie knew he would, David stumbled back to the bed to wake the two of them up. He planted kisses on the foreheads of Jack and Crutchie, walking back out of the room to go brush his teeth. Jack was the next out of bed, bumbling clumsily to follow Davey. For some reason, however, Crutchie couldn’t stand the thought of getting out of bed that morning. The blankets seemed too warm, the bed seemed too soft, and his brain seemed to hazy to do anything but go back to sleep. Before he knew it, Davey was shaking him back awake, pulling the comforter off. 

“Come on, Charlie. We don’t want to be late. What if someone needs you?”

“They’ll be fine for one day,” Crutchie mumbled, but rolled out of bed. 

He pulled on slacks and a shirt, brushed his teeth, and went to get his breakfast. In any other household, seeing your boyfriend floating down the hallway might have scared someone. But for these three, it was more than normal. After all, why should Charlie have to use his crutches, his disguise, to walk? He could fly, and there was no one here stopping him. 

Charlie looked around the kitchen, squinting his eyes at the sudden bright light. “Is there coffee?” he asked, his head at an angle. 

“No, sorry,” Jack pulled a plate down from the shelf. “We’re out of coffee grounds. We’ll get more tonight.”

Crutchie groaned and floated over to the cupboard to get bread. Popping it in the toaster, he turned around and asked, “So can we go to a coffeeshop on the way or-”

“Not unless we pick up the pace,” Davey swallowed a bite of cereal. “We’re behind enough that we have to rush to the station. So I don’t know if we could make it on time if we do.”

Huffing, Crutchie gave in and buttered his toast. 

-

The three of them made it to the station right on time - to see their usual train leave. 

“It’s my fault, guys,” Davey insisted. “I should have set our alarm earlier.”

Crutchie wanted to disagree, to say that they shouldn’t have set an alarm at all, and that they should have slept in today. But he stayed quiet, and took as deep of a breath as he could muster. 

“We could just - you know - take the, uh, ‘fast lane,’” Jack winked as he spoke. 

“Could you be any more obvious, Jack? Really? No,” Davey shook his head and whisper-shouted. “We’re not doing that. I’ll call Mrs. L,” Davey lowered his voice, even though he was using Agent Larkin’s code name for outside of work, “and tell her we’re going to be a little late. And we’ll just take the next one.”

That they did, because no one wanted to disagree with a frustrated David. 

-

When they got to work, Crutchie had barely poured himself a cup of watery coffee in the break room when the alarm went off. 

“Captain Cannon?” Agent Larkin’s assistant burst into the room. “One of your villains is back. It’s Rancor.”

He closed his eyes, hoping he wouldn’t get too angry. “Okay, thank you. Get Rogue, he’ll be coming with me as usual.”

“He’s already in the weapons room, sir.”

Captain Cannon nodded and stood up, levitating only about half an inch off the ground. He moved quickly, going to gear up and put his super-suit on as fast as he could. 

-

Once ready, Jack and Crutchie set out to go fight the villain, Sarah Jacobs speaking into their earpieces, telling them where to go to get the best vantage point. 

They could smell him before they saw him. 

“God, I think the sewers backed up overnight,” Jack laughed, but grew silent when his boyfriend set him down on the top of a tall building.  
There was Rancor, brown and black and dripping with poison and trash. Crutchie watched as Rancor spit his acidic toxin on the street, melting the sidewalk and cutting through cars. 

“Okay, guys,” the two of them heard Sarah say. “Here’s your plan, okay? Rogue, we need an understanding of what he’s after. So we need you to focus, get in his head, and really understand. And then, I think you need to go after it. Get it while he does. Rogue, if you distract him while the Captain gets his prize, this should be a fairly in-and-out, no violence deal. Got it?”

“Understood, Jacobs. Thank you,” Captain Cannon touched his mouthpiece gently, pushing it closer to his lips. “Rogue? What’s he after?”

“He’s looking to get into the museum down the block. There’s somethin’ in there, a rock or something, that he wants. Can you get it?” Jack looked at the Captain questioningly. 

“Of course I can. If you find out anything else about it, let me know. You’ve got Rancor for now?”

Rogue nodded. 

“Okay,” Crutchie looked down to ensure no one saw, and he grabbed his boyfriend’s hand and squeezed. “I’ll be back once I get the rock.”

Jack nodded and threw himself off the building. Charlie watched him go, then took off down the block.  
He soared between the front doors of the museum, over and through crowds of awed tourists. 

“Rocks, Gems, and Minerals,” read a banner above a door, with hundreds of people flooding the exhibit. Captain Cannon followed them, and raced to find one that might be what Rancor was looking for. 

“Captain!” he heard Rogue call through the earpiece. “It’s a huge red rock, and it’ll be glowing brightly! Hurry, I’m going to need some help with this.”

“I see it, I’m on my way back,” Captain Cannon replied, abandoning what he wanted to do and smashing the glass around a luminescent rock. 

He flew back as quickly as possible, noticing how much the weight of the rock was dragging him down. After setting it on a rooftop, the Captain flew to where Rogue was fighting Rancor. 

But just like when the three of them had missed the train that morning, Crutchie arrived in time to see Rancor escape. And he was holding Jack in his massive hand.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey thanks for reading! I'm thinking of either doing a fic in this series about Katherine or Jack next, so make sure you tell me which you would prefer.

“Captain, the procedure for losing both your partner and the villain is to come directly back to the agency,” Sarah shakily said into his earpiece. “If you’re okay with that, it really would be best for us to follow procedure and come up with a plan now, rather than doing something rash.”

Crutchie stared into the distance, at the place where he had last seen Jack. But then, he nodded and turned away. “Copy that,’ his chest moved up and down, “I’m on my way back.”

The city blurred beneath him as he flew, but it was not blurring because of tears, because he wasn’t crying. It must have been raining below him. Or around him. Whichever it was, it was cold. 

-

The agency, however, was much warmer. He could feel his fingers tingle as he landed in the rapidly closing garage. Doors opened in front of him, leading into a huge room. What he recognized first, however, was not the place he was supposed to go next. It was the face of his boyfriend, his sister, and his sister’s girlfriend. Davey was holding Sarah’s hand, and Sarah was holding Katherine’s hand. Shame washed over Crutchie as he saw Davey instinctively look for Jack, and then try to hide his disappointment when what he saw confirmed what he had heard. 

Looking anywhere but Davey’s eyes, Crutchie floated forward to speak to Sarah. 

“Captain,” she greeted him. 

“Agent Jacobs,” he looked at her. “Minerva,” he smiled forcedly in way of saying hello to Katherine. “Davey,” he nodded at his boyfriend, who dropped Sarah’s hand. 

“Charlie,” Davey whispered, stepping forward, grabbing Crutchie’s hand and pulling him as tight as he could. Crutchie could feel Davey swallow. “I’m glad you’re safe,” he choked out. 

“Let’s go figure out how to fix this,” Sarah suggested, her eyebrows high, “instead of wasting time feeling sorry for ourselves.”

Crutchie nodded, blinking back a stinging tear. He and Davey kept their hands intertwined as they made their way over to Sarah’s desk. 

“Alright,” she typed into her computer, bringing up a black map of New York. “We’ve got coordinates on where Rancor is, and I put someone on tracking down where the stone went.”

Sarah called over to a person at another desk, asking if they knew what the stone was or where it ended up. When they responded with a negative, she shook her head. 

“Why the hell do we have interns?” she rolled her eyes. “Anyway, we’ve got coordinates on Rancor, so we can probably get Rogue back as well. His lair is here-” she pointed to a spot on the screen, “-which is hidden underneath some old historical buildings.”

“So what’s the plan?” Captain Cannon asked, his eyes turning angry. He hardly even noticed Davey’s concerned and frightened expression. What he did notice of it made him angrier. Rancor had no right to take Jack, no right in the world to make Davey feel like this. 

“I’m going to say that Minerva and Captain Cannon need to go after Rancor. I think that Kat’s analytical abilities paired with the Captain’s strength will be paramount to this,” Sarah explained, mostly to Davey. “We’ll send them to Rancor’s lair. Once in there,” Sarah swiveled her chair to look at the heroes, “I will lose signal, and you won’t be able to hear me anymore. You have two objectives, and one condition on how you do it. Your objectives are: find and free Rogue, and find the rock and bring it back. The condition is: do not get separated.”

Crutchie and Katherine looked at each other and nodded. 

“Don’t get separated,” Sarah repeated. “Both for your sakes and for ours.”

This time, Sarah and David looked at each other, and then at their heroes, and nodded solemnly. 

“No time to waste,” Minerva stood up, and Captain Cannon followed her to the weapons room. 

He hadn’t realized how high he was levitating until he felt a pull on his hand. Crutchie turned around to see Davey, pulling his hand down so that he was almost on normal ground. He had to admit that he loved his. Davey was so much taller than him when Crutchie used his forearm crutches, but when he floated, he could meet his boyfriend at eye level or above. 

“Charlie,” Davey bit his lip, a sure sign he wanted to cry. “Make sure you bring him back safe, okay? And if he’s not safe, if he’s hurt, get him safe and bring him back, even if he’s in like, a million pieces. We’ll get him better.”

“I will,” Crutchie promised. “He’s going to be alright, I promise.”

He went to leave again, to follow his partner out the door again, but Davey pulled him back down again. 

“And make sure you’re safe too, okay? I don’t want to deal with either of you getting hurt, I don’t like that idea. But I’m really not sure I could handle-” his voice broke “-both of you hurt.”

“You won’t have to deal with that, alright? We’ll be back, all three of us, safely.”

Davey nodded, and Crutchie squeezed his hand one time before flying off. 

-

Captain Cannon and Minerva dropped down on a rooftop, and moments later walked out of the building dressed in plainclothes. They walked two blocks together, striking up a cheerful, surface-level conversation about the weather, until they reached the building. 

“This one, right?” Crutchie said, trying his best to keep his voice casual. 

“I think so!” Katherine opened the door for him to walk through, and he gave her a sarcastic smile. 

Sarah spoke into their earpieces. “Yeah, that’s it,” she said. 

A shop worker spotted them the moment they walked in. “Hello! How can I help you today?” she asked, her tone sickly sweet to match the fake front of the store. 

“We’re just looking around,” Katherine returned the sickening grin. “We’re new in town, see, and we’re just exploring a little. Thank you though!” 

She pulled Crutchie’s arm gently away from the worker. “Let’s get downstairs,” she whispered, and he wasn’t sure he agreed with her. If this place was giving him a bad feeling, he didn’t really want to go to the literal villain’s lair. But he did want to get Jack back. 

They found a big oaken door near the back of the store, and Katherine turned the brass doorknob. It led to a dark hallway, lit with a singular light bulb. Crutchie raised his eyebrows and nodded down the hallway. Katherine shrugged and, before any worker could see them, the two of them disappeared behind the door. 

-

It took a long time before they saw light again. They walked in the dark, unaware of how far they’d traveled. A deep blue light shone in a huge damp room, dimly illuminating the cavern by reflecting off of water droplets. 

Charlie removed his crutches, choosing instead to float just above the ground. 

“Captain,” Minerva caught his attention, “look.”

She was pointing across the room, to a corner that didn’t have any light. There was Jack, curled up in a ball behind bars. 

Captain Cannon looked around, checking his surroundings before flying over to Jack. 

“Rogue,” he whispered. Jack didn’t respond. “Jack.”

Jack’s fearful eyes met his. 

“It’s me, it’s the Captain. I’m going to get you out, I promise.” He fiddled with the lock on the cage, and looked to Minerva when he couldn’t get it open. She pulled a lock pick from her toolbelt on her waist, and messed with the lock enough to get it to pop open. 

“Come on, Jack,” Minerva whispered. “Let’s get you out, okay?” 

He crawled out of the cage, undignified. Just when the three of them felt safe, an alarm started blaring, the noise ringing off the cave’s walls. 

Minerva sighed and furiously began searching for the stone the two boys had tried to retrieve earlier. She spotted it in the corner and took off, readying herself to grab whatever tools she might need. 

Captain Cannon, however, was frozen in place as a familiar black being made its way towards him and Jack. 

A voice boomed through the room. “A prisoner is trying to escape? We’ll see about that.”

Captain Cannon attempted moving, but found his strength gone when he tried. Rancor’s sour laugh echoed in his ears as the villain scooped Jack up once more. 

“This one is too much trouble,” Rancor whispered, although it sounded much louder. “I think I will simply have to get rid of it.”

“NO!” the Captain shrieked, losing his control over his flight and falling to the ground. He could feel Rancor’s glare shift from Jack to him. 

“That’s… interesting,” Rancor muttered. “You should not have been able to move, hero. That must have been a very strong emotion you felt at the prospect of-” the lowlife stopped mid-sentence. 

Silence fell for a second, as if everyone was hanging on Rancor’s words. 

“I see,” Rancor laughed loudly, so patronising that it made Captain Cannon’s blood boil. “The small heroes are in love! Maybe,” he mused, “I should kill them both! Make it easier for them to handle.”

Davey’s words from earlier rang in Captain Cannon’s ears. But he couldn’t get up from the sticky, damp floor to do anything to stop Rancor as he swung his arm down, bringing Jack’s head close to a rock as if Jack were a freshly caught fish, or a bird in the mouth of a dog. 

With perfect timing, Minerva stabbed Rancor in the leg, using claws on her fingers to climb up his back. He screamed in pain, but that didn’t deter her from climbing higher and higher, and then down the length of his arm. She pulled his fingers off from around Jack, and let him drop when she was sure Captain Cannon was underneath him, ready to catch him. 

“Go, go, go!” she shouted, and the Captain carried his boyfriend out of the long hallway, all the way back up to the store front. 

He dropped him when he arrived back at the brass door, knowing he could no longer carry him. Putting his crutches back on, the two of them waited for Minerva.   
She appeared just as Crutchie began to worry, and slung Jack’s arm over her shoulders. The three of them walked out, back into the store and then back onto the street. They disappeared into an alleyway, and Captain Cannon lifted off, both Katherine and Jack hanging from his arms. 

-

They arrived back at the agency to find Sarah and Davey waiting for them anxiously. 

“Did you not hear me asking you two to check in with me?” Sarah asked the second she saw them. 

“Saz,” Katherine closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “I’m sorry, we turned off our radios when we knew we weren’t going to get signal from you, and I think we just forgot to turn them back on. It won’t happen again, I promise.”

“It better not,” Sarah pulled her girlfriend into a hug. “I got so nervous when I didn’t hear from you. We both did,” she gestured to David, who was examining Jack for injuries. 

 

“We’re fine, Davey,” Crutchie insisted. “Now, we’re going to have to debrief this mission with Agent Larkin, of course, but I want to talk to you about it first. Let’s go to the break room and talk, okay?”

Davey nodded, trying to seem sure of himself. 

“Of course, Jack might fall asleep in the middle of it, poor thing,” Crutchie laughed as he poured three glasses of water. He sat down and folded his hands on the table. 

“Davey, I don’t want you to be worried about us,” he reached for his boyfriend’s hand. 

“Is that what this is about?” Davey asked, but not accusingly. The corner of his mouth turned up. 

“Well, yeah,” Crutchie blushed. “But it’s important. We’re out a lot, on dangerous jobs, and we never have control over what’s going to happen to us. We can try to stay safe, so that you don’t have to worry when you’re back here in the lab, but Jack and I are never going to be actually safe. We do scary stuff, and you have to know that and understand it and accept it.”

Jack was already asleep. Oh well. 

“I do know that, Charlie,” Davey squeezed his hand and took a sip of water. “Of course I do. I’m reminded of it every morning when I see you float down the hallway, and every night when you’ve got a new bruise I don’t recognize. You have a dangerous job. And it’s the same dangerous job that Jack,” he paused and grinned lovingly at the sleeping boy, “has. So of course I’m going to worry about your safety. I’m never going to stop worrying about you two.”

Crutchie sipped his water as Davey kept talking. 

“The simple fact is that I’m always going to be worried about you two, because I love you. Frankly, it’d be the same if you were working a desk job or at a hospital or in a sandwich shop. I want you to be safe, and healthy, and happy.”

Blushing, Crutchie muttered something that he hoped sounded similar to, “I love you too,” and he stood up. 

“Should we go home?” Davey asked. 

“It’s only three,” Crutchie considered it, “but yeah, probably. Think Agent Larkin will be okay with that?”

Jack lifted his head slowly. “She should be,” he said. “I think she’ll understand, plus Sunspot’s coming in today, he can take care of stuff.”

“Let’s clock out then,” Davey stood up. 

-

The three boys, two heroes and a scientist, walked home together. They were significantly more tired than they had been that morning, but also significantly happier and more connected.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you liked it! Leave me a comment or kudo or come talk to me on tumblr @javidblue or @spot-and-all-his-cronies! Also, if you want more superhero au, let me know. Maybe tell me which character you want to know more about, and I'll write a fic about them!


End file.
